This collection is the perfect collection to use to scrapbook birthdays, because it’s jam-packed with so many fun, bright and colourful patterns and images. So to give you an idea of all of the fun stuff in this collection, I created this layout using a little bit of everything! But to be honest with you, I was having too much fun using all the pretty things and didn’t want to stop… Oops!

Birthdays and balloons go hand in hand, so when I saw this balloon cut file from Paige I couldn’t wait to use it with the Confetti Wishes collection.

Although the cut file is gorgeous as is, I wanted even more balloons to fill up most of my page. So I copy and pasted the cut file a few times and welded them together to create one giant cluster of balloons!

I then went ahead and backed each balloon with patterned paper using the 12×12 papers and the 6×6 paper pad, including some of the gold foil specialty papers to add some shimmer and shine!

The A side of Paper 10 is a cut-apart sheet of numbers which is perfect to use to create a decorative title, or incorporate the age of the person’s birthday you’re documenting into your project. On my layout I used this paper to back two of the balloons with numbers 1 & 8 since the photo I used on this page was taken when I turned 18.

My original plan was to use a white cardstock background, but I found that the balloons didn’t stand out enough and a lot of the cut file’s finer details blended in too much.

So I made the radical (well… radical for me!) decision to use paper 11 as my background. Using a black patterned paper background is something I never thought I would do, but I love how it showcases the cut file and the pink polkadots look like confetti which adds to the celebratory vibe of this page.

My worry with using a black background was that it would make the layout feel too dark and dull. But in a weird way, I think it brightened up the page even more and I’m really pleasantly surprised with the results. It’s a little “in your face”, but if you can’t be a little OTT when it’s a birthday, when can you?!

To embellish, I layered die-cuts, stickers and chipboard pieces to create embellishment clusters around the photo to help make it stand out.

And I feel that I should explain my crazy face in the photo… I was actually in an art installation at a Tate gallery, where you could go into a room that was full of balloons and my hair went very static! So this photo seemed very appropriate to use with this balloon cut file.

And finally, if you don’t have a die-cutting machine this layout would still be easy to replicate. Balloons are such simple shapes, so all you would need to do is cut a balloon shape with scissors and use some thread to create the string. I even attached some string to a cluster of the balloon embellishments to make it look as if the toucan was holding them up. This was so simple to do and the result looks adorable!

Thanks for stopping by today, and make sure to pop back this week to get some more birthday inspiration from the rest of the DT!